Prep Softball: Milledgeville beats Dakota in NUIC-East battle for first

Thursday

Apr 17, 2014 at 9:27 PMApr 17, 2014 at 9:32 PM

By Adam J. KradleRockford Register Star

MILLEDGEVILLE — The best way to describe Morgan Adolph’s performance on Thursday would be to call it wildly effective.

The righty ace didn’t display great control, but she did make plenty of big pitches in key spots, and the Missile offense was able to back her with enough support in a 6-2 win over NUIC-East softball rival Dakota. Kayleigh Leddy’s two-run homer capped a three-run fifth inning that put the game out of the Indians’ reach and gave the Missiles a one-game lead in the conference race. But the two East front-runners will meet again in two weeks.

“We’ve got to make every game as important as this one,” Milledgeville senior catcher Courtney Swalve said. “It just gives a little boost to have a leg up in the conference.”

While Adolph walked six and hit another, she struck out 10 and didn’t allow her first hit until the sixth inning. Most importantly for Milledgeville (6-5, 4-0), she worked her way out of some key jams. Half of her strikeouts came with runners in scoring position for Dakota (6-1, 5-1).

“The day when ‘Mo’ realizes she can dominate by throwing strikes will be the day that she can win tons of games,” Milledgeville coach Brad Grenoble said. “She’s got the stuff to dominate. She can strike girls out. This is her first year being an ace and she doesn’t have the ace mentality yet to go get them. Once she believes in herself she’ll be dominant.”

The usually potent Indians lineup was unable to get anything going with the bats for the first five innings, but Adolph’s wildness and a couple of errors still gave Dakota ample opportunity to score while still within striking distance. The Indians put runners on first and second with one out in the first inning and loaded the bases with one out in the fourth, but only managed to get one run, which came on a bases-loaded walk to Kassidy Korte.

“We just kept looking for that next walk instead of going up there to try and drive runs in,” Dakota coach Jeff Kinney said. “We had plenty of opportunities. We just didn’t take advantage.”

The Indians left six runners in scoring position against Adolph and the Missiles. Meanwhile, Dakota starter Olivia Zimmerman didn’t have near as much luck with stranding baserunners. She showed better control than Adolph by not walking a single batter, but the Missiles managed to tag her with some key run-scoring hits, including Swalve’s two-run double in the third and Leddy’s two-run homer in the fifth. The Dakota defense didn’t Zimmerman too many favors either. The Indians committed three errors, two of which helped contribute to Milledgeville runs.

“We give an extra base here or there and then all of the sudden it’s an RBI groundout, which could’ve been a girl stuck at third base and she never comes around,” Kinney said. “Close games come down to defense and timely hitting and we just didn’t do either of those things today.”

Dakota and Milledgeville will square off again in Dakota on April 30 in a make-up game that could have conference title implications if both teams take care of their business before then.

“I just told the girls, ‘don’t get arrogant, don’t get cocky, keep playing hard, but we’re sitting in the driver’s seat,” Grenoble said. “Right now we’ve just got to do our job and the conference is ours when people thought it was a down year for Milledgeville and I think we’re going to be right there again.”